Howa Superlite 308win Field Evaluation

[Riflman]

Have you read the thread?

I might have missed a few posts. I wasn't getting the notifications, so will go back through. I just remember the first part with all the problems, and if it was covered there, I probably got glazed over since there were a LOT of issues.

 

[Riflman]

No- you should shoot and function test every rifle before it ships. Not cherry pick.

If you owned a rifle manufacturing company, and you were sending a rifle out for review, and you maybe had shareholders to answer to, you might think differently. I hear you, but unless someone says they are pulling a rifle out of warehouse stock at random, you probably are not getting one that is indeed random. I can't recall if you got this rifle for free or had to send it back, but if sending it back, then keep in mind that many companies have a bank of rifles (or other products) that get sent around to different influencers, so it's not a virgin rifle anyway.

 

[Formidilosus]

If you owned a rifle manufacturing company, and you were sending a rifle out for review, and you maybe had shareholders to answer to, you might think differently.

Hmm… so it is ok to send out junk items to customers, just as long as advertising is good so you make a buck…?


But no, I wouldn’t. If I need to cherry pick a product to be sure it works- I have a junk product. This is exactly what is wrong with this industry and culture.
Either manufactures are making items that work with an extremely low failure rate, or they are not.

I hear you, but unless someone says they are pulling a rifle out of warehouse stock at random, you probably are not getting one that is indeed random. I can't recall if you got this rifle for free or had to send it back, but if sending it back, then keep in mind that many companies have a bank of rifles (or other products) that get sent around to different influencers, so it's not a virgin rifle anyway.

I’m note sure what you are saying or asking. The OP explains how this rifle was sent to Ryan. It was NIB and clearly was not cherry picked. However, due to that possibility a second is being procured that isn’t from Howa.

 

[RS3579]

Thank you for spending your time doing this honest review. Looking forward to the updated review.

 

[Riflman]

Hmm… so it is ok to send out junk items to customers, just as long as advertising is good so you make a buck…?


But no, I wouldn’t. If I need to cherry pick a product to be sure it works- I have a junk product. This is exactly what is wrong with this industry and culture.
Either manufactures are making items that work with an extremely low failure rate, or they are not.





I’m note sure what you are saying or asking. The OP explains how this rifle was sent to Ryan. It was NIB and clearly was not cherry picked. However, due to that possibility a second is being procured that isn’t from Howa.

Ok. Well I don’t think Howa or anyone who wants to stay in business would intentionally make junk to rip off customers, and then fraudulently send out cherry picked one off rifles to promote said junk and con people into buying it. I would hope that most MFGs in this industry (or others) strive to make a good product. At least as good as they can for what they charge and still be able to make a profit.That all said, clearly you are very upset with Howa and who knows how many other MFGs, and seemingly the entire industry, so I’ll bow out of this one. I don’t represent Howa either.

 

[Formidilosus]

Ok. Well I don’t think Howa or anyone who wants to stay in business would intentionally make junk to rip off customers, and then fraudulently send out cherry picked one off rifles to promote said junk and con people into buying it. I would hope that most MFGs in this industry (or others) strive to make a good product. At least as good as they can for what they charge and still be able to make a profit.

That’s literally what you have been saying Howa should have done since your first post- go through the rifles, cherry pick one, then send that one out to be evaluated because shareholders need paid.

That all said, clearly you are very upset with Howa and who knows how many other MFGs, and seemingly the entire industry, so I’ll bow out of this one. I don’t represent Howa either.

I have nothing at all against Howa- I very much reject your position that manufacturers should do anything other than pull a rifle off the shelf and send it to be evaluated. Doing anything other than what you do for every single product you send out the door is objective dishonesty. You are lying to your customers.

And yes- I despise the gun industry for exactly what you are espousing. Customers are not your quality control nor are they your beta testers. As a company, do your job- design, test heavily and correctly, have good quality control and checks in place for every single product that goes out the door.

 

[Mike 338]

Customers are not your quality control nor are they your beta testers. As a company, do your job- design, test heavily and correctly, have good quality control and checks in place for every single product that goes out the door.

Haaa, with an attitude like that, you'll never get a weekend invite to one of those boys club ranches with the open bar, flopping in overstuffed chairs, sipping scotch and get gushed over by a corporate guy who just evicted his mother for a late payment on the house he's renting her.

Where's the future in that?

 

[Riflman]

That’s literally what you have been saying Howa should have done since your first post- go through the rifles, cherry pick one, then send that one out to be evaluated because shareholders need paid.

I never said that. You are twisting what I said now. I'm sorry you had such an awful experience with the rifle.

I have nothing at all against Howa- I very much reject your position that manufacturers should do anything other than pull a rifle off the shelf and send it to be evaluated. Doing anything other than what you do for every single product you send out the door is objective dishonesty.

This is not *my* position. This is your angry, distorted view of what I was trying to say.

You are lying to your customers.

*I'm* not lying to anyone. I never suggested anyone be deceitful and *I* reject your characterization of same.

And yes- I despise the gun industry for exactly what you are espousing. Customers are not your quality control nor are they your beta testers. As a company, do your job- design, test heavily and correctly, have good quality control and checks in place for every single product that goes out the door.

Again, this is not my rifle company, and I don't make any products, and I certainly don't condone anything you just described, and don't believe that any company that wants to stay in business would.

Now again, I'm really sorry you are so upset about the rifle, the industry, the business, what I said or didn't say, or what you think I said, or whatever else happened that made you so angry. Can we steer the thread back to the rifle review results? I am looking forward to hearing the updates. I'll probably buy one anyway, but still looking forward to the results on the independently purchased rifle.

 

[Formidilosus]

I never said that. You are twisting what I said now. I'm sorry you had such an awful experience with the rifle.
This is not *my* position. This is your angry, distorted view of what I was trying to say.


*I'm* not lying to anyone. I never suggested anyone be deceitful and *I* reject your characterization of same.

Really? Here are your posts from the first one in this thread until now-

without actually making sure that the simple things, like making sure if you send a rifle out to an influencer, the best shooting F^%king rifle in the place goes out. And have a rack full of equally good shooters ready to go for same. And yes, hopefully having a good quality product to begin with, but still taking great pains to ensure that when a product is in the limelight, it's well tested before it goes out the door.

This thread should never have happened and a tested rifle that shot super well should have been sent.

But still, if sending a rifle out, it’s a good idea to make sure it shoots.

Let’s face it… if you own a business and have some control over a situation, you’re likely wise to exercise it, like making sure a rifle shoots. Unless it was agreed to be a random from the warehouse. I think any reasonable person would do the same.

The bolded underlined portions are literally stating that they should have went through and cherry picked a rifle.

Now more than ever, branding and marketing is most important. Even more so than having a good product. You can sell a ton of crap product with good branding and marketing, but you can't sell the best product with crappy branding and marketing.

Yep- “branding” is the issue. Not non existent testing or validation, function checks, QC/QA, etc.

Now again, I’m really sorry you are so upset about the rifle, the industry, the business, what I said or didn't say, or what you think I said, or whatever else happened that made you so angry.

I’m not upset about the rifle in the slightest, nor am I angry. I am pointing out that your position and what you have written since your first post on this thread is the reason that the industry is filled with products that fail and do not work. This rifle is no different than lots of Savages, Remingtons, Kimber Montana’s, Bergaras, Christianson, Fierce, etc, etc.
Somehow magically Sauer, Browning, Sako, Blaser, Tikka, etc can ship rifles that have an extremely low incidence of function or precision issues, but others can’t.

 

[Riflman]

"Influencer" I am not a party to the agreement between you and Howa or the terms. If the agreement was some kind of "independent, scientific, certified, unbiased review where it was supposed to be a "random pick rifle", and a promise was made to supply one under that scenario, then that's a different story. And usually under those circumstances, the reviewer goes and purchases the rifle with their own money from a third party source, to be 100% sure. And then on top of that, the reviewer has to then *also be honest* and give an unbiased review (rare). You pretty much said yourself that reviews are typically BS. So whoever is reading a review, has to question that too, including yours. Not saying that's the case here, but how does one truly know that you are given on honest account? There are just as many bad reviews done for nefarious purposes as there are good. Fake reviews good and bad, paid for all the time. In every industry. Companies trying to destroy each other or take market share and sometimes using reviewers or negative PR to do that. In many ways, it's an attempt to circumvent litigation, or have a patsy if litigation happens. Politicians can say what they want because they are considered public figures, but the rest of us can end up in court for what we write or say. That's the world we live in. And that's why "reviews" can no longer be trusted. Influencers? That's a slightly different story, because I don't think anyone really trusts them anyway. But they like them or follow them and support them and the products they like. It's more entertainment and fandom. And I hate it. Somewhere in this thread, I said not to believe anything that you read, and only half of what you see. And I stand to that for every review, even yours.

And for the record, this forum has advertisers right? I have seen all kinds of shenanigans on forums over advertising and sponsor competition, as someone who has purchased advertising and helped build several forums over the last 30 years. You clearly have influence on this forum. Are you paid by the forum or share in the ad revenues? If so, the lines get blurred quickly. Is Howa an advertiser? All important questions. And I'm not making accusations, just playing devil's advocate here and pointing out that it's all relative. But I expect that just raising these points will probably get me banned. Even though I tried like hell to steer it back to the damn rifle.

 

[Riflman]

Somehow magically Sauer, Browning, Sako, Blaser, Tikka, etc can ship rifles that have an extremely low incidence of function or precision issues, but others can’t.

I would like to hear from these MFGs that they do not QA rifles or at least do a basic function test before sending them out to influencers and yes, even for reviews. I would like them to say that EVERY TIME they send a rifle out to one of these influencers, it's a brand new randomly selected rifle, and that they do not have a bank of rifles that are sent around to these influencers, including from out of one reviewers hands into another. Just like Canon cameras, Nikon cameras, Vehicles, etc. I want these "reputable" MFGs to say that they send hundreds of brand new rifles, cameras, cars out to pressers and writers and tv personalities and shows, and then tell us how they deal with all of these now used pieces of equipment.

What you are describing are companies that make great products and have great quality control and in some cases are much more expensive (Sako, BLASER??). The rest about reviews you are making assumptions about. You certainly don't know their protocol or the terms and even if you did, you said yourself, no MFGs can really be trusted...

 

[swavescatter]

 

[Luke S]

Do Howas with the other mags have feed problems? I was thinking about a project with a Howa but this is not encouraging. And the bolt wracking/heavy trigger issue is concerning.

 

[Formidilosus]

Do Howas with the other mags have feed problems? I was thinking about a project with a Howa but this is not encouraging. And the bolt wracking/heavy trigger issue is concerning.

Most I have seen feed fine. Howa’s biggest problem- by a long shot, has been their poor mag systems.

As for the trigger- ehh. Being that most hunters rack the bolt with the same trepidation and speed as if shaving their no-no spot…. It’s not a massive deal. At least the trigger still works and doesn’t fire when dropped.

 

[Luke S]

Well I ran my Ruger American so hard I broke the roll pin that holds the firing pin in place. I fixed it with an after market part from the local hardwear store. So I might be a bit rougher on my gear than average.

 

[Scottyboy]

"Influencer" I am not a party to the agreement between you and Howa or the terms. If the agreement was some kind of "independent, scientific, certified, unbiased review where it was supposed to be a "random pick rifle", and a promise was made to supply one under that scenario, then that's a different story. And usually under those circumstances, the reviewer goes and purchases the rifle with their own money from a third party source, to be 100% sure. And then on top of that, the reviewer has to then *also be honest* and give an unbiased review (rare). You pretty much said yourself that reviews are typically BS. So whoever is reading a review, has to question that too, including yours. Not saying that's the case here, but how does one truly know that you are given on honest account? There are just as many bad reviews done for nefarious purposes as there are good. Fake reviews good and bad, paid for all the time. In every industry. Companies trying to destroy each other or take market share and sometimes using reviewers or negative PR to do that. In many ways, it's an attempt to circumvent litigation, or have a patsy if litigation happens. Politicians can say what they want because they are considered public figures, but the rest of us can end up in court for what we write or say. That's the world we live in. And that's why "reviews" can no longer be trusted. Influencers? That's a slightly different story, because I don't think anyone really trusts them anyway. But they like them or follow them and support them and the products they like. It's more entertainment and fandom. And I hate it. Somewhere in this thread, I said not to believe anything that you read, and only half of what you see. And I stand to that for every review, even yours.

And for the record, this forum has advertisers right? I have seen all kinds of shenanigans on forums over advertising and sponsor competition, as someone who has purchased advertising and helped build several forums over the last 30 years. You clearly have influence on this forum. Are you paid by the forum or share in the ad revenues? If so, the lines get blurred quickly. Is Howa an advertiser? All important questions. And I'm not making accusations, just playing devil's advocate here and pointing out that it's all relative. But I expect that just raising these points will probably get me banned. Even though I tried like hell to steer it back to the damn rifle.

I hate replying to keep this going. But if you spend anytime on this forum you will very, very…..very quickly realize the “reviewers” give 2 shits if it’s sponsored or not.

Tract = sponsor. Use the search feature and see how that worked out.

Maven = sponsor. Same as above (minus 1.2 threads)

Swaro, gunwerks, Christensen….pick your flavor of the day and I’d bet my next pay check you will find more critical (negative) and or “truthful” posts about any of their products on here….posted by staff, than not.

Of course bias is tough but again the reason (I feel anyways, so only speaking for myself) that many people come here and take what they read with a little more than a grain of salt is trusting what we read. Be it from experience, real world use etc etc .

Again, just wanted to throw this out but do agree with you…back to the rifle as I have been eyeing a howa barreled action for quite some time

 

[ElPollo]

I’m looking forward to getting back to hearing about how the rifle performs when Form gets the replacement.

 

[Mike 338]

I’m looking forward to getting back to hearing about how the rifle performs when Form gets the replacement.

Me too, and also how the 2nd rifle stacks up. It would be hard to imagine the 2nd one mimicking the first but you never know.

 

[Southernfried]

Me too, and also how the 2nd rifle stacks up. It would be hard to imagine the 2nd one mimicking the first but you never know.

Does anyone know if Weatherby does anything at all to the magazine, trigger etc on the Vanguard series to improve any of these items on the 1500? Guess what Im asking, what is the difference between a Weatherby Vanguard and a Howa 1500? Anything? Thanks in advance.

 

[Pilsner]

My "exhibit A" would be Leupold- LOTS of negative ink spilled on them, and they are still selling a lot of scopes. And there are many more examples out there.

I agree that these companies need to do a lot better job. But I like to see these nonbiased reviews that Form does. It should cause change to the manufacturing process. But if I were in charge of one of these companies ALL of the review & testing would be done in-house BEFORE the first shipment to the public.

In the past 4 years I have:
Returned a C.A. Ridgeline twice to be fixed.
Returned a S&W 22 Mag Revolver twice to be fixed.
Returned 2 Ruger American 17 HMR twice each for failure to extract and then had to fix them both myself.
Returned for refund a Gun Werks bipod non-functioning out of the box.
Returned 2 Gun Werks range finders non-functioning out of the box.

Without reading further I can nearly see the eye rolls that your response generated so I thought I'd add my own eye-roll fodder:


Last year I send back 2 items to Leupold, 4 items to Vortex, and have one new rifle to unfuck the chamber in but the guy who did the chamber is a local guy of who has gotten nearly legendary status for making GREAT rifles. But he is getting older and has retired twice so I kinda knew I was rolling the dice so I ain't mad.
That's just rifles and scopes.

As far as back country gear I'm due to return for repair the following this spring:
2 Thermarest cots (cots + pack goats don't mix)
A major brand name quilt (bad seam sewing)
2 inflatable sleeping pads (valves won't hold a.seal with air in them)
Etc.
Don't ask about the range finder I haven't seen since last March (repair) or half a dozen other items.
I'm not abusive on gear but I actually USE my shit which means it breaks.
The OP is NOT an a one-off. Folks who use their gear do exist despite what customer service reps says.
This is seperate from broken gear for my off road vehicles, fishing gear, dog vests, etc.
At some point it's.only fair that I do a post on companies with the best customer service regarding my.broken gear